Challenge and Change: Independent Project Portfolio

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the processes by which understanding of a contemporary challenge is achieved, integrating historical knowledge with insights drawn from other fields and methodologies.
• the means by which empirical research, creative thought and command of particular advocacy and communication approaches may combine to produce a prospectus for meaningful change.
• the subject chosen for your project portfolio, including principal primary source materials and relevant scholarly literature.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• identify a significant contemporary challenge and a practical means of addressing it.
• demonstrate the capacity for self-directed problem-solving, independent working and autonomous time- management.
• integrate appropriate means and approaches to advocacy, education and/or communication into your project.
• locate relevant source materials to inform your understanding of that challenge.
• develop and manage a practical programme of work to bring your project portfolio to fruition.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• analyse past approaches to your chosen contemporary challenge and assess their effectiveness.
• critically evaluate and integrate a wide range of both primary source materials and arguments contained in secondary texts to achieve an understanding of the causes and consequences of a key contemporary challenge.
• identify meaningful historical examples of analogous challenges and assess whether they offer a potential basis for approaching your chosen contemporary challenge.

You will complete a project portfolio on a contemporary challenge of your choice, subject to available supervisory expertise. This may follow on from (but not replicate) work completed in other elements of the programme, but this is not a requirement. You will attend a series of workshops to help to formulate your ideas in collaboration with your peers and your tutors. You will be allocated an appropriate supervisor, and develop the project further under their initial guidance. The majority of the work, however, is done independently. A project proposal and a sample chapter will be submitted for comment to the supervisor.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include workshops, tutorials with supervisor, and feedback on written work.

Learning activities include collaborative project development with peers and tutors, tutorial discussions with supervisor, research for and organization and composition of project portfolio, and the production of components.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Charles R. Doty ( 1997). Guide to Dissertation Proposal Preparation & Dissertation Preparation. New Jersey.

James E. Mauch & Jack W. Birch (1993). Guide to the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: A Handbook for Students and Faculty. New York.

Derek Swetnam (1997). Writing Your Dissertation: How to Plan, Prepare and Present Your Work Successfully. Oxford.

Liz Hampson (1994). How's your Dissertation Going?: Students share the Rough Reality of Dissertation and Project. Lancaster.

Roy Preece (1994). Starting Research: an Introduction to Academic Research and Dissertation Writing. London.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External